Carte Blanche - Jeffery Deaver [70]
He immediately regretted doing so.
31
‘James! James! James! Guess who? Percy here. Long time no speak!’
Bond’s heart sank.
Leiter frowned at the glower on Bond’s face.
‘Percy . . . yes.’
Division Three’s Osborne-Smith enquired, ‘You well? No altercations requiring anything more than a plaster, I trust.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Delighted to hear it. Now, things are proceeding apace here. Your boss has briefed everyone about the Gehenna plan. You were perhaps too busy fleeing the jurisdiction to be in touch.’ He let that hang for a moment, then said, ‘Aha. Just winding you up, James. Fact is, I’m calling for several reasons and the first is to apologise.’
‘Really?’ Bond asked, suspicious.
The Division Three man’s voice grew serious. ‘In London this morning, I’ll admit I had a tac team ready to grab Hydt at the airport, bring him in for some tea and conversation. But it turns out you were right. The Watchers picked up a scrap and managed to decrypt it. Hold on – I quote from the record. Here we go: something garbled, then “Severan has three main partners . . . any one of them can push the button if he’s not available.” So you see, James, arresting him would have been a disaster, just as you said. The others would have scurried down the rabbit hole and we’d’ve lost any chance to find out what Gehenna was about and stop it.’ He paused for breath. ‘I was a touch whingey when we met and I’m sorry about that too. I want to work with you on this, James. Apologies accepted? Bygones turned to bygones with a swipe of Hermione’s magic wand?’
In the intelligence world, Bond had learnt, your allies sought forgiveness for their transgressions against you about as often as your enemies did. He supposed that some of Osborne-Smith’s contrition was based on staying in the game for part of the glory, but that was all right with Bond. All he cared about was learning what the Gehenna plan was and preventing thousands of deaths.
‘I suppose.’
‘Good. Now, your boss sent us a signal about what you found up in March and I’m following it up. The “blast radius” is pretty obvious – an IED – so we’re tracking down any reports of stray explosives. And we know that one of the “terms” of the deal involves five million quid. I’ve called in some favours at the Bank of England to check SFT activity.’
Bond too had thought of calling the Bank with a request to flag suspect financial transactions. But nowadays five million pounds was such small change that he’d believed there would be far too many responses to plough through. Still, it couldn’t hurt for Osborne-Smith to go ahead.
The Division Three man added, ‘As for the reference to the “course” being confirmed, well, until we know more, there’re no aircraft or ships to monitor. But I’ve put the aviation and port chaps on alert to move fast if we need to.’
‘Good,’ Bond said, without adding that he’d asked Bill Tanner to do much the same. ‘I’ve just found out that Hydt, his lady friend and the Irishman are on their way to Cape Town.’
‘Cape Town? Now that’s worth chewing over. I’ve been peering into Hydt’s recesses, so to speak.’
This was, Bond supposed, what passed for a comradely joke with Percy Osborne-Smith.
‘South Africa is one of Green Way’s biggest operations. His home from home. I bet Gehenna must have some connection with it – Lord knows, there’re plenty of British interests there.’
Bond told him about al-Fulan and the girl’s death. ‘All we learnt specifically is that Hydt gets a kick out of pictures of dead bodies. And the Arab’s company probably has something to do with Gehenna. He’s supplied equipment to arms dealers and warlords in the past.’
‘Really? Interesting. Which reminds me. Take a look at the photo I’m uploading. You should have it now.’
Bond minimised the active-call screen on his mobile and opened a secure attachment. The picture was of the Irishman. ‘That’s him,’ he told Osborne-Smith.
‘Thought it might be. His name’s Niall Dunne.’ He spelt it out.
‘How did you find him?’
‘Footage from the CCTVs at Gatwick. He’s not in the databases